Cebas PSD-Manager

[Art48]

Hi,

We're working exclusively with Photoshop in our studio here and I was wondering how often Cebas PSD-Manager is used in similar circumstances? It seems very nice from what I see and could potentially cut down times for post since the first half hour after a rendering is finished usually consists of getting some (not all) of the output files into Photoshop. We don't use a "traditional" compositing workflow where we rebuild the image from render elements but rather we take the beauty pass and then do stuff with it with the different passes like spec/refl etc. Is PSD-Manager useful for that workflow, too?

Baically I want to hear some opinions of people using it, how you guys use it, what you find good and bad about it.

[glorybound]

I use it and I would highly recommend it. With the progressive render, it has been an issue because it's not working with masks, yet; I heard that they are working on something. Really, I couldn't live without it.

[NicoC]

Hello,

Being a PSDM user (and beta tester) for years, I can do nothing but recommend you to ask Daniel Schmidt (PSDM dev) for a trial - one month with unlimited features is generally enough to see the potential of this tool in your daily work.
Like Bobby, we could hardly live/work without !

To give a piece of answer about your "what's good / bad in it", my 2 cents:

GOOD
- wide choice of output options (REs, Scene Layers, Named Selection Sets, ObjIDs, MatIDs, Separated Object Output) and modes (channels, layers as render cut-outs / luminance matte / alpha matte)
- easy to use
- automatic switching to PSB if PSD file is too big (above 2Go AFAIR), useful for very hires outputs - or you can simply always switch to PSB, up to you
- choice between 8 / 16 / 32 bpc, to match everyone's workflow
- full VRay support (gamma correction and VFB Color Corrections baked or as PS adjustments layers, plus per RE)
- unlimited rendernodes with one UI license
- price ... it's very quickly profitable
- ...

BAD
- to be honest, I don't see one for now ... will have to think about it, and discuss that with my coworkers !

[Art48]

I kind of heard about it several times in the past but there was stuff like no PSB support (we work in the print industry, so basically we don't even do PSD anymore :P) and a kind of "old"/"legacy" look to it which kept me from using it. So you say it is definitely up to date and on par with todays stuff? Progressive not working is not that problematic for us since our final renderings are mostly bucket renderings.

I don't quite get the "normal" trial version of it though. Is it fully featured? Time limited?

[theedge]

But wait : when you say half an hour to get the output files into photoshop... you don't mean just bring them in separate layers right? This should take a few seconds.

[Art48]

But wait : when you say half an hour to get the output files into photoshop... you don't mean just bring them in separate layers right? This should take a few seconds.

Admittedly this was the hardest one to date. 25k px 16bit floating point image. Bringing in all the layers, setting the blendmodes etc took nearly half an hour :P

[dans]

We don't use a "traditional" compositing workflow where we rebuild the image from render elements but rather we take the beauty pass and then do stuff with it with the different passes like spec/refl etc. Is PSD-Manager useful for that workflow, too?

I believe most don't do a full "back to beauty" compositing. Personally I think, starting from the beauty and subtracting lets say reflections and then adding tweaked reflections back on top is a very useful technique. Lets you focus on what you need to change and simplifies things.

I kind of heard about it several times in the past but there was stuff like no PSB support (we work in the print industry, so basically we don't even do PSD anymore :P) and a kind of "old"/"legacy" look to it which kept me from using it...

PSB support is new in psd-manager 4.0 and it will automatically switch to it when needed. However if you know you will exceed the limits of PSD files set it to PSB upfront and it will save faster. psd-manager writes the whole image on the fly as the data is generated - that means it doesn't store an extra image copy in memory - so it will never run out of RAM.
Not sure what you mean with "old"/"legacy" look? - it looks like a 3ds max plugin - not like Kai's Power Tools (nothing against Kai really, great guy). I try to keep the UI clean and not overload it with options. Some things like entering the Object-IDs in a text field like "1-100, 120-150" may look legacy at first sight - but saves a lot of time, UI space and is simply functional. Try the same with MultiMattes and see how long you click. psd-manager knows which IDs are present in the image and creates mattes just for those. No empty layers.

....Progressive not working is not that problematic for us since our final renderings are mostly bucket renderings.

Progressive mode IS supported - you can save image and render elements, color correction adjustment layer etc. as usual. Just the psd-manager built-in mask generation tools need bucket mode - that is because V-ray provides no deep data in progressive mode. Using the mask generation tools within psd-manager can save memory since the number of mattes does not influence the amount of RAM it needs. So 10 or 1000 masks makes no difference to the amount of RAM required. Writing the image will just take longer. Might be interesting for your high resolutions.

I don't quite get the "normal" trial version of it though. Is it fully featured? Time limited?

Trial on the psd-manager website is resolution limited (2000 x 2000) and watermarked. I sent you a private message so you can test higher resolutions and PSB support if you need.

Daniel

[Art48]

Wow, that's really nice of you! I'll definitely try it for the next project or two and let you know my thoughts. For that price if it does what it advertises properly there's a very good chance we'd buy it I think! Replied to your PM.

[Deflaminis]

I've been using it for years and I absolutely love it. It does take a long time to make the layers with high res images though, but still worth it.

[Art48]

Taking some time for high res image is totally okay. It's machine time so I don't really care, I appreciate it :P.

@dans: I wrote you a PM regarding the trial.

Edit:
Does PSD-Manager work with resumed renderings (the new 3.5 feature)?
Also: dans are you in contact with RebusFarm to get PSD Manager supported there? Would make sense from a customer PoV.

[pixelplume]

great product! I have used it for years and it paid for itself the first day I used it.

[dans]

Taking some time for high res image is totally okay. It's machine time so I don't really care, I appreciate it :P.
Does PSD-Manager work with resumed renderings (the new 3.5 feature)?

Resumable rendering workflow in general does work with psd-manager. However, V-Ray doesn't correctly resume the G-Buffer (deep data) - the V-ray documentation mentions deep data not being resumed in bucket mode. So render elements etc. will export correctly. psd-manager generated mask layers will just show the buckets that were rendered after the render was continued.

Also: dans are you in contact with RebusFarm to get PSD Manager supported there? Would make sense from a customer PoV.

Do they support single frame render using V-Ray DR for high resolutions? In the past the problem was that if these render services try to render in stripes then they can not stitch the multi-layer PSD files together. I will contact them what the status is on that.

Daniel

[Art48]

Hi,

First of all thanks for the extended trial. We bought it .

I noticed though (I am not completely done with my tests yet) that it seems that PSD-Manager won't work AT ALL when "resumable rendering" is ticked, no matter if it is rendered in one go or not. As I disabled it, it worked fine. This was through Backburner though. And I cannot completely rule out a licensing issue there. Have to test more.

We had LOTS of issues with licensing but in the end that was due to the stupid windows firewall turning itself on on every restart. Duh. (For anyone with similar problems: Disable the Windows Firewall Service completely, should stay off then...)
As soon as I figured out the windows firewall was blocking it it seemed to work but somehow my setup with the password for the license got...messed up? I think I have it working now. To be completely honest personally I would like it MUCH more if we had a online-licensing system where say you have to login every x Days to "renew" the license. But that may be just personal preference.

Thanks again for all your answers, especially dans.

Edit:

Do they support single frame render using V-Ray DR for high resolutions? In the past the problem was that if these render services try to render in stripes then they can not stitch the multi-layer PSD files together. I will contact them what the status is on that.
Daniel

They still seem to render that way. It would be gold though if you guys could figure out a way to make it work.

[dans]

I noticed though (I am not completely done with my tests yet) that it seems that PSD-Manager won't work AT ALL when "resumable rendering" is ticked, no matter if it is rendered in one go or not. As I disabled it, it worked fine. This was through Backburner though. And I cannot completely rule out a licensing issue there. Have to test more.

A licensing issue is unlikely as network rendering never requires a license. Maybe you tried to render a scene that was saved with the Trial version or still had the Trial installed on the slaves? Scenes created using the Trial need to be opened once using the full version, check psd-manager settings in UI and saved again. Maybe you can send me some steps you used to test this and a simple scene file to mail@daniel-schmidt.biz.

We had LOTS of issues with licensing but in the end that was due to the stupid windows firewall turning itself on on every restart. Duh. (For anyone with similar problems: Disable the Windows Firewall Service completely, should stay off then...)
As soon as I figured out the windows firewall was blocking it it seemed to work but somehow my setup with the password for the license got...messed up? I think I have it working now. To be completely honest personally I would like it MUCH more if we had a online-licensing system where say you have to login every x Days to "renew" the license. But that may be just personal preference.

If you used the separate licensing service installer that I sent you, then it would have added an exception to the Windows firewall. You can also run the installer now, it will not affect your license. Installing the license service via product manager doesn't do this automatically. This will be changed. Sincee you wer in contact with someone else regarding this, I will check back with cebas.

Thanks again for all your answers, especially dans.

Thank you for using psd-manager.

They still seem to render that way. It would be gold though if you guys could figure out a way to make it work.

I have raised the priority for this - it is on the roadmap to provide a tool to stitch PSDs. If you want to use a network rendering service, always let the service provider know which plugins you want supported.

Daniel

[glorybound]

If I am not mistaken, masks from layers will not work with progressive, correct? I thought I was told that it is in the workings. Now, the elements are created when you Stop the progressive render, which is awesome.